Freedom of speech, responsibility for our rights

You think it'd be clear by now, but novelists, talk show hosts, TV networks, U.S. presidents, broadcasters, athletes, entertainers and others all have two things in common, at a minimum:

They can't make you do what you don't want to do. And they can't keep you from doing what you will.

But now, those who supposedly advocate free speech and free expression are calling for an end to the expression they don't like. It was right-leaning writers and opinion-makers doing this during the Bush years; Andrew Sullivan, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al. played the terrorism-treason card so often it got silly.

Now it's the Left's turn, and they aren't disappointing. In the past few days, I've read and heard several examples of Left-leaning writers calling for hate-speech laws, "rounding up" those whom they view as espousing hateful ideas, etc. Along the way, they're blaming the murders of George Tiller, the late-term "abortion provider," and the U.S. Holocaust Museum shooting on Limbaugh et al. As if we hadn't discussed, and dismissed, this idea repeatedly. (Strangely, it doesn't seem to apply to the U.S. Army recruitment office murder, but that's hardly surprising -- and it would be every bit as wrong if they were advocatin gsuch.) Just as we didn't blame J.D. Salinger for John Lennon's murder, or Jodie Foster for the assassination attempt on Pres. Reagan -- because that's crazy, much as the murderers were/are -- we cannot hold anyone other than the murderers responsible for the murders. You may hate Rush Limbaugh, but he didn't cause any of this. Nor did Charles Manson or "society" cause Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme to attempt the assassination of Pres. Ford, or anarchists other than Leon Czolgosz cause Pres. William McKinely's assassination, and so on. And on and on.

Bottom line: There are those on the Right and Left -- Republicans and Democrats -- who are enemies of our Constitutonally identified freedoms. Our vigilance against these monsters -- both nutjob murderers (defense against whom requires a strong, individualist reading of the Second Amendment) and nutjob usurpers of our freedoms (defense against whom requires a strong, individualist reading of the First Amendment) -- is the only thing keeping them from rounding anyone up.